Ardennes'44 The Battle of the Bulge on Vassal - Part One

For the last five weeks on a Tuesday nights Steve M and I have been battling away in the Ardennes of 1944 refighting the last WWII German offensive in the west that came to be known as 'The Battle of the Bulge' as the German 7th Army and 5th and 6th Panzer Armies crashed over the Belgian frontline facing US troops on December 16th in what was thought to be a quiet sector of the front, where battered US divisions from other sectors could be safely sent to reorganise and accommodate fresh replacements from the rear.

Over the years my Battle of the Bulge itch has tended to be scratched by playing, first the 1981 Avalon Hill classic game of the name with copious reading of various General Magazine editions to work out the best possible attack set ups and the various percentage chances of success; swiftly replaced when I first discovered it and introduced it to Steve, 'Tigers in the Mist - Ardennes Offensive' also by GMT which we both love playing and would have probably done so this time around if there was a Vassal module to use.

The counter artwork is nicely captured in the Vassal module with the usual stats of Attack-Defence-Movement familiar in other games allowing a ratio of attack factors versus defence factors to be calculated 

So wanting to indulge ourselves with another bout of bridge blowing and Panzer hunting we looked for an alternative and decided to play a game I have had in my collection since it was first published but never had out on the table and given the size of it, perhaps is a little unsurprising.

The map shot below shows how massive a game this is with a hex scale of 1.6 miles, daily turns of eight hours (two day turns and one night turn and units representing, brigades, regiments and battalions, and for those willing to commit the time and effort the potential to play right through to December 30th, incorporating Operation Nordwind and the Allied counterattack in the wake of clearing skies and the return of the tactical and strategic air forces to hammer the Germans back to their start lines.

The glorious map from Ardennes'44 as presented in the Vassal module with the German start forces lined along the bottom map edge in highlighted army group/divisional areas (blue, grey and red) and with German army boundaries (red hex lines) extending into the US sectors to prevent units intermixing in the early days of the German offensive. 

The size of the game illustrates well why Vassal is such a great platform to play on, having allowed us to play about a day's action of US and German turns each evening, leaving the saved copy of the game ready for our return a week later to pick up where we left off with map and counter graphics beautifully displayed making it so easy to immerse ourselves in it.

A close up of the German start line and the various units displayed in the positions awaiting my final adjustments as I assumed command for our game. Units not able to move from their positions are marked by yellow counters and US troops in fixed defences are shown under their +2 defence markers all set for the initial German artillery barrage prior to the first attacks to go in.

As with all Bulge games the situation presented to both players is what it was historically with a large number of German units looking to barrel along the few roads that run against the grain of the country, namely gaps in the mountains and hills and across rivers to eventually get out into more open country before crossing the River Meuse and on to Antwerp, leaving the shell shocked American defenders to do their best to slow the Germans at those choke points to allow their powerful reinforcements time to get into position to stabilise the offensive before pushing it back.

Thus we approached the game on that basis focussing our attention on working towards those objectives whilst learning the game play as we went, which is generally how we get to grips with all our first game plays, after a read through of the rules and a sharing of our learning, and in the end we decided to play the six turn scenario (ending December 18th) which focusses on the early German drive to secure key towns (ten) together with, if possible, exiting the first German spearhead units off the map.

The Turn Record Track and Reinforcement schedule illustrates the two day turns which include a German and US turn in each followed by a night turn, with limited movement options and during which the US player goes first. As can be seen big stacks of US reinforcements are due on the17th and 18th of December as the Allies wake up to what is happening. 

My basic plan to start the offensive would have to be to get my infantry on both sides of the River Our that runs along the German start line parallel to the West Wall fortifications bringing overwhelming force where possible to the US forces holding that line, ideally near to key bridges which I hoped to capture to allow my armoured and mechanised units to start to break into the American rear areas.

On the right of the German line in the red area occupied by Dietrich's 6th Panzer army spearheaded by 1st and 12th SS Panzer Divisions, the river was not an issue but here the road network up to Malmedy is more limited in the number of approach routes and with stronger US units in position with others close by ready to reinforce via Eupen and Monschau.

Key VP Towns highlighted in red circles, and grey/red if captured. Grey arrows show spearhead attacks by Panzer Divisions.
Day One (first two day turns and one night turn), at the end of 16th December on the 7th Army/6th Panzer Army Front and German units have pushed the American defenders off the River Our, threatening to push through to St Vith and Bastogne, with key bridges held and others under construction and two VP towns (Echternach and Clervaux) in German control.

As it turned out, a combination of massing large attacks of four and five to one using the copious amounts of German artillery on the first day of the offensive together with my die rolls being blessed by the Devil with numerous '1's' and '2's' (low rolls are good in Ardennes'44), Steve's defenders were rapidly pushed back or destroyed on the 7th Army/6th Panzer Army Front with victory point towns of Echternach and Clervaux taken on the first day and routes opened up to three others (Ettelbruck, Wiltz and St Vith), with the capture of ten such towns giving victory to the Germans in the six turn (16th  to the 18th December) scenario.

The Germans are blessed with 'Big Cats' and Panzer Grenadiers, but you still need to get them to where they are needed in country not best suited for driving a Tiger II around.

However the desperation built into the very planning of this offensive is well modelled as the German player discovers the limited capacity of dragging forward his artillery to support further attacks across the River Our and a limit placed on the number of artillery units able to reactivate on the succeeding days due to limited stocks of ammunition and the reduced ability to bring them forward; as well as the hold ups on poor roads in bad weather caused to German follow up units waiting to use the limited number of river crossings, and if that was not bad enough, the road blocks the US player can start to lay down ahead of German spearhead units, simulating the occasional Allied air attack or other similar hold ups.

Artillery and armour are key to German attacks in that they help shift a two or three to one attack with column shifts up to four and five to one and US units left in their wake are taken care of by the slower moving infantry and Volksgrenadier regiments who look to isolate them and attack the weaker units or cause the 'low morale/straight off the boat' units to surrender.

As my lead infantry units sought to consolidate river crossing points to facilitate the forward movement of the panzer units, I started to discover the need to push the Americans well back from them as Steve managed to blow a few bridges after I had crossed them but having failed to get his infantry further away from them, leaving them open to infiltration attacks - oh well, did I mention about learning the rules as we played!

Key VP Towns highlighted in red circles, and grey/red if captured. Grey arrows show spearhead attacks by Panzer Divisions.
End of Day One on the 6th Panzer Army front, and despite 1SS forcing their way into Bullingen with KG Peiper leading the charge to threaten Malmedy and the Monschau Road, the single road through the Losheim Gap illustrates well the problems faced on this front, with a strong US defensive line in front of Rocherath/Krinkelt funnelling the SS divisions either side and reducing the frontage of the offensive to just one or two lead units and with 12th SS unable to push forward in heavily forested terrain. 

The 6th Panzer Army front sets different problems to the German player with a very strongly held US defence line next to the Losheim Gap really limiting the approach routes, but with a successful attack by Kampfgruppe Peiper into Bullingen the race was on to get to Malmedy before the Americans could block the road effectively.

With German units on the road to St Vith and Bastogne and with KG Peiper in Bullingen, can the offensive keep going before the US reinforcements move in?

In Part Two, we'll see how well the German offensive continues on into the 17th December as Steve's American front line attempts to recover from the shock and early success of the German attacks.

Next up: The Trafalgar Build project is coming to a conclusion as the last twelve models await work in JJ's shipyard and I take a look at the collection to date and further ideas about putting together a 'big game', post-pandemic restrictions on social gathering.

Richard III, Columbia Games using Vassal

Over the Christmas break, Steve and I reacquainted ourselves with another of the Columbia Games family of block games we have enjoyed playing face to face in the past, namely Richard III this time on Vassal and recreating the bloody events of the 'Cousins War' latterly come to be known as the War of the Roses.

The Columbia take on this dramatic time in British history is a campaign game of three separate but linked games of seven turns recreating the fighting and fleeing abroad by the losing faction, raising money and troops reinvading and having another go at claiming the throne that came to characterise the wars between the rival houses of York and Lancaster with each house represented by a hierarchy of five Royal Nobles backed up by noble supporters and able to supplement their forces with those of the church, levies, mercenaries and rebels.

Of course the built in fog of war by the use of blocks, that hide the identity of what forces are gathered before you by the enemy, means battle is always fraught with hidden menace as the strength and quality of the enemy is only revealed when the opposing parties are brought to the battle board.

Then by adding in the odd plague, storms at sea, and a variable number of Action Points generated by a hand of cards that enable forces to be raised and moved, the game sets up a framework for both sides to achieve dominance in the kingdom by ending up having more nobles loyal to them than the other side.

The game sets the scene by having the weak and ineffective Henry VI, the grandson of the usurper Henry IV and presiding over the loss of noble estates in France following his fathers early death after his victory at Agincourt barely holding the situation together and with the House of York set to invade from Ireland and Calais to march on London.

In our game I took the House of Lancaster and Steve York as we concentrated our forces in the South of England in the counties of Hampshire, Wiltshire and Oxfordshire that resulted in the Lancastrians forced to take a boat to France and with the map below dominated by Yorkist sympathisers and just two Lancastrian hold outs in Wiltshire and Devon. 

The first campaign map and the Yorkists have control of the kingdom with Somerset and the other Lancastrian royals kicking their heels in 'Belle-France'.

The only glimmer on the horizon for the Lancastrians was our decision to include the 'Historical Events' additional rules that sees the rolling of a d6 by the King, the Pretender and the King again and consulting a list of plausible events that occurred in the short periods of peace that held between the series of campaigns.

In the event Steve ended up seeing both Richard Duke of York and Edward Earl of March succumb to a bad case of the vapours and die leaving him three heirs to work with through the next two campaigns.

The Lancastrian power base, following the defeat in the first campaign had taken a decisive shift to the north of England and so I decided to launch my second campaign in Cumbria and Scotland which on reflection was  not such a great plan as I had envisaged.

By focussing my efforts in the north, I allowed Steve the time to mop up my supporters in the south and the time it took crossing the various parts of mountainous terrain on the Scottish border and over the Pennines left little scope to  press my campaign south and with Steve carefully putting few nobles in range of my Lancastrian hoards but leaving his forward defence of the Midlands to levies and mercenaries he was able to close out the second campaign with a couple more nobles on the board forcing the Lancastrians to flee to France yet again.

Oh dear, my cunning plan foiled in the second campaign, with Yorkist nobles relatively unaffected by my slow marching Lancastrian hordes and so it was off back to France yet again, and not even Warwick wanted to come with me!

The historical events chart nearly came up trumps for Lancaster as Steve managed to annoy Warwick the Kingmaker enough to see him change sides only to find on his second die roll that Warwick had changed his mind and re-joined the Yorkist fold.

Oh well things were looking decidedly uphill for the Lancastrians with a three noble advantage to York on the map I would have to try and kill that many and not loose anymore of my own to have a hope of reclaiming the throne and I would not make the mistake of landing too far away from the midlands to have enough time to try and bring on one or more major battles where I could hope to kill Yorkists.

All over for Henry VI and God Save King Richard the III despite that rather noticeable hunch back, oh and where are his nephews? 

For the final campaign Henry, Somerset and Prince Edward joined with Stanley in the royal county of Lancaster bringing down the Scots and the nobles from Cumbria and Northumbria whilst raising the Levies of Newcastle together with the Church troops of York and some Lincolnshire rebels.

The final clash came in the Royal estates of Derbyshire as Steve pushed forward a picket line of militia and mercenaries bolstered by the occasional noble to frustrate my advance and leaving the map above solidly white from the midlands southward, protecting London, and a stack of dead red noble blocks against a smaller stack of white ones just off the Bristol Channel.

Thus history was reversed and Richard Duke of York took the throne as King Richard the III and didn't end up in a parking lot in Leicester!

It was fun playing Richard III again and certainly a challenge playing the Lancastrians who don't quite have the quality of the Yorkists and are difficult in my opinion to come back with from a poor start which I certainly managed to deliver and Steve managed very well by helping me to lose my nobles whilst killing his mercenaries in the later campaigns, coupled with a poor decision on my part for my landings in the second campaign.

Of course the card play and available events and action points make sure one game can be quite different from another and the historical event chart adds a little extra spice especially for the House that is on top having to suffer two die rolls on it between campaigns.

So with medieval England in our wake and with 2021 beckoning Steve and I headed off back to WWII with our current game now into its third week and one that is a bit of a monster ideal for playing on Vassal, 'Ardennes 44' from GMT with Steve taking the Allies and me climbing aboard my Tiger II and heading off towards the Schnee Eifel, more anon.

Next up: Well I'm not sure exactly, the editorial team are still debating the next post, but at the top of the queue are my six French generic 3rd rates in Revolutionary War trim set to join Villeneuve's Trafalgar line up, The sticks are up and they are going into the fitting out yard to have sails and rigging issued from the stores this weekend. 

My normal building routine has had a slight departure from normal with recent messing about on the games table, trying out rule sets and I might take time to take a look at rules in the age of sail following a chat with the chaps at the DWG on our weekly Zoom gathering to talk wargaming and other stuff whilst enjoying a beer or two.

The other plan is to update on the Trafalgar project with all three fleets nearing completion and the first naval reviews being planned.

Rommel in the Desert - Campaign Game with Vassal

 

So just before the close of play last year, Steve and I decided to finish off 2020 with the full campaign game of Rommel in the Desert (RITD) which combines the 1941 and 1942 scenarios into a two year campaign by linking the orders of battles and checking for supply and build up points from month to month in effect twenty turns of play that covers the period encompassing, The retreat from Benghazi, Operation Crusader, Gazala, First and Second Alamein if you get that far.

Empire Set Up April 1941 with the Tobruk garrison of five units plus some extra infantry operating in the outskirts and my forward units of Neame's battered and worn XIII Corps

Out of preference to the way I like to play, I would probably err towards playing Afrika Korps and the Axis, but we decided to roll for sides and I took the Empire forces.

This is a game that Steve and I had discussed many times as one we would like to play using the board game with time permitting and room to leave it set up, and so Vassal really makes playing this longer variant so much more 'doable' in that we were able to play through for three nights over three weeks, saving and coming back to the game in between.

Empire Order of Battle for the Campaign Game, less the set up units which are illustrated above in the placement I opted for at the start before Steve started the Axis forces rolling forward from El Agheila

As will be surmised from the orders of battle in the two shots from the game set up, the advantage in numbers and quality lie with the Axis in 1941 and early 1942 and for the Empire player it is not simply a case of hanging on, but one of looking for opportunities to degrade the Axis order of battle by writing down Afrika Korps units in particular, whilst not paying too high a price to do so, knowing better quality units and lots of them will arrive in the later period.

The Axis Order of Battle, very much front loaded with some excellent Afrika Korps units, but starting to dry up as the war progresses into late 1942

In addition to managing the battle situations, the Empire forces, in particular, have to know when to trade space for time, ideally leaving well reinforced garrisons in Tobruk and Bardia with effective defences, better supported with mines if possible, thus stretching the Axis supply line if they advance past those garrisons and allowing the Empire to shorten their supply and logistics route to Alexandria at the same time.

Of course if the Empire forces fall back too soon without drawing Axis units forward in their wake, they run the risk of leaving the garrisons to be overwhelmed before relief forces can reach them and if the Axis get control, particularly of Tobruk in 1941, it could be a very long game for the Empire.

The set up for 1941 recreates the battered and worn Empire units fresh from their success under General Richard O'Connor having defeated the Italian Tenth Army during Operation Compass between September 1940 to February 1941, seeing them capture 130,000 prisoners, 400 tanks and 1,292 guns, but leaving the Empire troops exhausted and regrouping near Beda Fomm with forward elements patrolling towards the Italian supply base of El Agheila, and much weaker after having a veteran cohort of the force siphoned off by Churchill for operations in defending Greece and Crete.

Enter the Afrika Korps under a relatively unknown German general, Erwin Rommel, who not prepared to sit back and wait for his total force allocation to arrive, plunged off into the blue with his first units of armour and reconnaissance troops that clashed with and then rolled back the weak Empire forces before them in April, starting the first part of what became commonly known to the British 'Tommies' as the 'Benghazi Handicap' as opposing forces raced each other along the North African coastal highway to be the first to the next potential choke point before Tobruk.

Empire Retreat April 1941 - Turn 1
Empire rear-guard forces do an excellent job delaying the Axis advance and inflicting annoying casualties, whilst forcing them to burn vital supplies in the advance to Tobruk

In anticipation, from the Ultra intercepts I had been receiving, I planned for my inevitable retreat to be more ordered than that achieved by Lieutenant General Phillip Neame commanding XIII Corps and placed small units of motorised and lorried infantry supported by the odd battered remnants of cruiser tanks from 2nd Armoured Division at choke points such as Benghazi and the coastal corridor through the mountains of the Jebel el Akhdar and south of them on the desert track at Mechili, to act as speed bumps.

I could not hope to stop the Axis units coming up the road towards me but by occupying positions that were far enough away, such as Mechili to force supply point expenditure to get there or in places like Benghazi and its fortifications together with limited access reducing the number of Axis forces that could attack at any one time, the plan was to fight and withdraw, hoping for the manoeuvrability, and/or armour of my troops to give them an element of protection from pursuit fire, but enabling me to delay the Axis and build up my forces in and around Tobruk.

Axis consolidate whilst Empire reinforce from Alexandria May 1941 - Turn 2

As my rear-guard forces fell back before Tobruk in May 41, the delaying tactics seemed to have paid off with two highly valuable Afrika Korps units in the destroyed box alongside three of my battered remnants and a more valuable brigade from 70th Division, caught up in the retreat from Mechili, but a reasonable trade off that allowed me to build up supply and manpower as the Axis spent theirs in the pursuit.

Destroyed Axis and Empire units April-May 1941
Those two Afrika Corps units, more than made up for the loss of my three remnants and the lorried infantry brigade from 70th Division.

As the Empire forces fell back on Tobruk and later towards the Egyptian frontier, both sides drew breath and pulled forward their reinforcements, which saw a formidable stack of Axis troops advancing around Tobruk as the Empire had the fortune of the early arrival of several full strength cruiser tank brigades, plus spending fifteen 'build up' points to build minefields in and around the Tobruk defences.

Our previous warm up games playing Crusader and Gazala had taught both of us the lesson to be wary of charging in on stacks unprepared and the value of all arms attacks to cover those eventualities, but the pressure for the Axis to make hay in those early months ensured the attacks that came in during June, July, August and September as we both fought in the sands south of Tobruk on the frontier, attempting to weaken the other enough to enable either the Axis to assault Tobruk without hinderence or face being driven back to regroup from losses sustained in the fighting.

End June 1941, Axis lay siege to Tobruk - Turn 3
An ominously large stack of Axis units hovers south of Tobruk, looking to force events on the Egyptian frontier south of Bardia

In the end the fighting close to Bardia proved too much for the Empire troops, having called in reserves from Bardia itself only to see the Axis rush troops forward to occupy the key town and then to smash the Empire armour units in a very large drawn out battle near Fort Capuzzo as both sides increased their forces committed that broke the Empire force sufficiently to cause a general withdawal back to Alexandria and the Alamein line at the end of November.

The start of the Battle of Fort Capuzzo as the lead elements engage, that would see the Axis victorious and the Empire forced back to El Alamein in November 1941.

The really great part of playing the full campaign is that it forces the players to think ahead and not just on the battle in front of them during a two or three month scenario.

In the campaign, decisions have to be made when to call an end to the combat, to allow the opportunity to get key forces away from the battle to hopefully be rebuilt alongside newly arrived reinforcements; and leaving those forces as rear-guards to die, unable to escape multiple attacks in pursuit is sometimes not an option, but the decision to fall back from the frontier to Alexandria was a difficult one.

Destroyed Axis and Empire units End Nov 1941
This screen-shot tells the tale as to why the Empire forces had to fall back to Alexandria and leave Tobruk to fend for itself in January 1942

The decision put the ball very much in the Axis court and Steve found himself having to decide whether to pursue the Empire towards El Alamein with Tobruk behind and on his supply line and all the problems of the length of the route causing to his own supplies and reinforcements, but with the opportunity, should the Alamein line be broken, to end the North African campaign in 1941; or to make use of the breathing space to turn the full force of the Axis against Tobruk and deal with the problem in time for the next campaign in 1942.

End November 1941Tobruk under siege and Empire back on the El Alamein Line - Turn 8
A difficult decision at the time, but the Empire had to fall back to Alamein if it were to stand any chance of holding on into 1942

Steve chose the later option and so January 1942 saw the Battle for Tobruk as Axis troops braved shell, shot and mine to attempt to batter their way into the city as the Empire reserves desperately rebuilt and regrouped alongside the new arrivals to rush along the coast road to Bardia, with not much hope of closing on Tobruk before February 1942.

The minefield placement in Tobruk in May proved a wise investment and the Empire infantry together with support from their 25-pounders chewed up the Axis attacks in the first rounds of combat, but Steve was committed to the offensive and threw in the reserves, reducing the defenders to a single artillery brigade with one strength point left before the Axis were compelled to withdraw through lack of supplies to support more attacks; 'a close run thing' as the Duke would have called it!

As the Axis battered themselves against the defences of Tobruk, the Empire reserves rushed up to Bardia and with the Axis frontier stripped of troops investing Tobruk, assaulted back into the town and rounded up the German infantry left to hold it, later laying mines around it before advancing on Tobruk with a large force of mechanised infantry, armour and artillery to Gambut on the coast road below the Sidi Rezegh escarpment as January drew to a close.

End January 1942 - Turn 10
The battle to take Tobruk was a close run thing but the Empire just held on as their reserves rushed forward from Alexandria to retake Bardia 

The choice of positioning the main Empire relief force at Gambut was deliberate in that it both supported Tobruk and Bardia, enabled reinforcements to make their way in to replace the losses in Tobruk and being on the coast below the Sidi Rezegh escarpment limited any Axis attack to just two routes in, thus limiting the numbers that could engage at any one time.

With the Axis forces busy sorting themselves out at Gazala, the crisis of our campaign had been reached with the beefed up units of Eighth Army due to arrive in the summer including the new Grant tank brigades, Steve would have to force the issue around Tobruk now.

The fighting in January and the subsequent losses together with the Empire reinforcements had seen a shift in the balance and now the Axis were hard pressed to attack Tobruk whilst preventing those forces from being attacked, but, having the advantage to move first, moved immediately back into the attack on Tobruk, whilst placing a blocking force between the city and the Empire reserves at Gambut on the coast road at Belhamed.

However the Gambut forces were composed of armoured and mechanised troops supported with artillery and anti-tank guns, so that as the reinforced garrison in Tobruk now sporting a brigade of Matilda infantry tanks in support held the Axis attack, the forces at Gambut fell on both the Axis blocking force and were also able to put units into the Torbruk area thus splitting the fire of the Axis units there.

End February 1942 - Turn 11 and they think it's all over, well it is now! The Axis forces fall back from Tobruk for the last time

The fighting in Tobruk and directly outside it at Belhamed proved too much of a stretch for the Axis units left and with supplies dwindling and the Afrika Korps armour bled white together with numerous other support units now destroyed, they fell back to Gazala.

A quick look at the 'Dead Pool' at the end of February 1942 shows the comeback the Empire made in the first two months of the year with numerous Axis units written down in and outside Tobruk in the bitter battles for possession of the town.

Destroyed Axis and Empire units End Feb 1942 and Game End

At turn twelve with the first Grant tank brigade to arrive and another eighteen Empire brigades in the next six months, with next to nothing for the Axis we decided that Rommel would be looking to fall back to Tunis from here and so called the game.

The campaign lived up to all our expectations with all the added drama of retreats, build ups, pursuits and massive battles in between the twelve months of campaigning, as we worked our way through, and RITD is a definite favourite and one I'm sure we will return to again.

Thanks to Steve M who played a great game as Field Marshal Rommel and produced a real cut and thrust contest with the Empire driven back to Alexandria in December 1941, eight months earlier than his historical counterpart managed and came within a battery of 25-pounders of also emulating the German general by nearly taking Tobruk the following month.

Next up - Lots of stuff in the pipeline; The Leeward Line scenario continues using War by Sail as Collingwood's British division of ships comes broadside to broadside with Admiral Alava's and Magon's Franco-Spanish division, plus Steve and I managed to squeeze in a Vassal game of Columbia Games' Richard III as we played the campaign game between Xmas and New Year, and later I have six French 3rd rates on the stocks in a slightly different Revolutionary War livery and an interestingly different Age of Sail book that I'm reading at the moment to review a bit later.

Rommel in the Desert - Vassal (The Battle of Gazala 1942)

 

Following our first Vassal game of Columbia Games' Rommel in the Desert where we got into getting to grips with the rules in the scenario creating Operation Crusader, fought in the winter months of 1941, we moved on to the next sequential scenario, namely Gazala fought the following year in the summer of 1942.

http://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2020/12/rommel-in-desert-vassal.html

Axis Order of Battle for The Battle of Gazala in May 1942.
The strength of each unit is at the top, with fourteen of my twenty-four carrying losses from the winter of 1941

For this game we swapped sides and I took the Axis forces, who having been pushed back from their siege of Tobruk at the end of the Crusader operation had fallen back towards Benghazi and El Agheila to rebuild over the winter of 1942, before pressing forward in May to resume matters with the Empire forces who had been similarly rebuilding and reinforcing their garrison of Tobruk.

Rommel in his personalised halftrack together with a command Panzer III oversee the fighting at Gazala in 1942
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gazala

The scenario in Rommel in the Desert sets up in May with both sides having accumulated 30 Build up Points which they can spend on preparing their forces for the coming clash.

These points are used to move units from and back to the front from each sides respective main base at El Agheila and Alexandria, rebuilding damaged units from the previous campaign at various costs ranging from 3BP to put a strength point on an armoured brigade to just 1BP for a basic leg propelled infantry brigade and a whopping 15BP to place a minefield or 10BP to buy an extra supply card.

In the case of the Axis forces I chose to repair all my armour and German mechanised infantry, together with my anti-tank guns and artillery that had been damaged in Crusader back at base leaving me with no points to do anything else and thus forcing me to deploy elements of the 90th Light Division, together with the Afrika Korps Recon regiments and my Italian leg infantry up on the front line as illustrated in the map below.

Our game map at the start of play with Steve yet to place his Empire forces and with the Empire set up line indicated. Most of the Axis force is still refitting in El Agheila and will be rushed forward to support my forward screen, running from the coast out into the desert of Cyrenacia, in the first turn.

Of course the blind play of this game meant that I would not know what Steve would do with his points or how he would deploy other than along and to the east of the line of red hexes illustrating the Empire line at Gazala, and the blind play in all the Columbia block games is one of their strongest features.

Empire Order of Battle for Gazala.
Similarly to Axis, Empire forces are shown still in the process of rebuilding their units in May but ahead with just over half of their brigades back up to full strength and available to be deployed on the front line.

The Battle of Gazala would see the Empire forces wield a major new addition to their armoured strike force thanks to the entry of the USA into the war and President Roosevelt earmarking the latest deliveries of the M3 Lee tank, adapted by the British for desert use and renamed by them as the Grant, offering them the opportunity to field for the first time a tank capable of delivering an HE round against German softskins, infantry, and more importantly anti-tank guns, instead of relying on the BESA hull and turret mounted machineguns that had proved unsuitable for dealing with this menace.

In addition the Grant carried carried a 75mm main gun that as well as delivering an HE round could also deal very adequately with most of the German tanks and so although not ideal, being mounted in the hull with limited traverse, was a welcome addition for the Empire armoured brigades.

One of Eighth Army's new Grant tanks passes a knocked out Panzer I command vehicle during the fighting at Gazala in May-June 1942

As it turned out we both spent the best part of May 42 refitting the balance our units and bringing them to the front, spending our pool of supply points to do so, and with both of us aware of the importance in this game of looking for ways to hold on to as much of ones own precious supply points whilst the enemy fritters their own away we were being very cagey about throwing units into battle.

However the difference between playing this game, with the scenarios, and the full campaign game is that in the scenarios time is a much reduced commodity and for the Axis (24 units), that puts added pressure to attack and look to start eating away at the Empire order of battle (36 units), as the minimum victory conditions are to have more units on the board than the other chap to have caused them to pull back.

So rather like the historical battle I committed the Axis forces to their first attack on the Empire line just prior to us both passing, a situation which brings the current month to an end. Not wishing to spend too much supply but wanting to feel out the enemy positions as well as score some early kills, I pushed forward with a small battlegroup of Trieste mechanised infantry supported by German recon and Ariete armour finding Empire infantry and armour and pulling back after a short skirmish around Retima, suspecting other larger stacks behind were other Empire armoured units.

With just the month of June to conclude this game, both of us were now focussed on using our recouped supply cache for battle rather than long marches and, with hidden deployments and the defender getting to fire first, the distinct possibility to set up an ambush to create a battle that the other side may not wish to fight.

The battle at Bir Hacheim is indicated 'Active' at the close of play in June 1942, having drawn in much of the Empire line and with Axis supply spent, with just four dummy supply markers on the grey border at the top of the map. Empire supply was in a similar state.

Thus with a firm flank of Italian and 90th Light Division troops anchored against the coast I pushed forward an Afrika Korps anti-tank screen battle group of the 11th and 3rd FlaK brigades supported by two regiments of 90th Light Mechanised Panzergrenadiers into the Bir Hacheim hex hoping that Steve might take the bait by leading an attack with some of those armoured stacks I felt sure were close by.

With my line relatively short and with this battlegroup hanging out on the flank I was concerned that Steve might try to move around it before attacking so placed the Axis armour and further groups of mech infantry back behind it to refuse my flank and supporting my forward anti-tank screen.

Well Steve declined to flank and came into the Bir Hacheim hex with a mix of armour and infantry to find those 88mm guns and Panzergrenadiers as they revealed themselves and the German guns ripped into those Empire Grant tanks.

The battle lines at Bir Hacheim with the Empire armour badly battered by a combination of German tank and anti-tank fire, but equally the German Panzergrenadiers battered by Empire infantry and artillery fire.

The Empire force survived first contact with some units damaged but with the Axis force untouched and it is these kind of actions that force the players to make decisions about whether to stay and fight or to try and pull back all governed by the mobility of your force versus the enemy and the likelyhood of surviving pursuit fire, how much supply remains, what your enemy is likely to have left and in the case of a short scenario how much time remains.

Well both Steve and I were keen to force a decision point battle and the line up above shows the units still standing at the close as we both consumed what was left of our supply bringing more units to the fight and initiating battle.

As the last of the supply points were laid and both of us passed in June, ending the scenario, we both drew breath not knowing what the result was after the firing died down.

The points cost of remaining units were totted up with Italian and Empire brigade/regiments equating to one point each and the Afrika Korps one and a half points each.

The 'Destroyed Box' shows the units lost to both sides, effectively three Axis units to eight Empire based on points value

The Empire had lost eight units against two Afrika Korps units, equating to eight points versus three points lost. which left the totals at thirty-six points of Axis units on the board versus twenty-eight points of Empire units plus another two points to the Empire for holding an unbesieged Tobruk for a total Empire score of thirty points and an Axis attritional victory by six points.

Thus with two scenarios under our belt and our knowledge of how to play this game up to speed, we have decided to play the campaign game which combines the 1941 and 1942 scenarios and adds that other dimension of time alongside the other other great components of supply and unit management around the battles.

This is where I think the Vassal system will shine allowing as it does everything to be easily left and started again between games and we are looking forward to battling away up to the Christmas holiday.

More anon.

Next up, I take a look at a recent play through of Rolica 1808 from O'er the Hills, another book gets reviewed and the first exchanges of play in Steve and my Campaign game of Rommel in the Desert.